September 05, 2004

Tiger Woods

With every tournament Tiger enters, there's a chagrin that he doesn't dominate the way he used to. "Why did he ditch his coach?" "Why can't he compete the way he used to?" "Where did the real Tiger go?"

The danger of entering the cycle of Shu-Ha-Ri is that you don't have time to emerge from the learning to engage back in your art, field, or sport the way you need to. I would bet that Tiger not only has the time, given his age and detachment from being on top, but has the natural ability, should his cycling through Shu-Ha-Ri be true. Don't assume you know what's going on with him, as so many do. Hope that he's following the last post.

Posted by wayofgo at 10:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 01, 2004

Black Belt Jones

The desire to be a black belt is admirable, but often mis-directed. Be it martial arts, Go, six-sigma, what-have-you, mastery is rarely achieved, if ever. When I asked Cho Chikun, one of the strongest Go players ever, what he knew of Go, he answered, "nothing." He wasn't being coy, but was expressing that Go's depth was so much more than his knowledge.

As with any field or endeavor with depth, there's always more to explore and learn from. In relation to your peers, you can dominate, but if that's the end goal of your "mastery," it's a shallow mastery at best. To attain a deeper mastery, you'd best follow what the Japanese call Shu-Ha-Ri.

Shu means learning the root forms, the basics, the fundamentals of the art or endeavor you choose. In golf, it is learning how to swing a variety of clubs and using them for driving, shooting from the fairway, chipping, hitting out of sand, and putting. If you get to the point where you can get around a golf course with these strokes, you're no master, but you have achieved a level of Shu that can take you to the next phase - Ha.

Ha means trying different styles, fighting against your comfort zones and learning things from a different perspective. In golf, it might mean learning a new way to address the ball, stand, space your feet. In business life, it might mean trying to do a presentation without PowerPoint, not reading directly from printed notes, taking risks when you've taken none, really, before. While your job, golf, or Go might decline in perceived strength - since you're trying some new - your real strength grows through revisiting the basics in another way. Once conversant in Ha, you may need to go back to Shu, but you might also be ready for Ri.

Ri is the recognition that both Ha and Shu are vital components of fundamentals and different approaches, but that the real art of your art or field comes to life when YOU come to life. That is, when you become part of the art. You are unique. Your intrinsic nature, your learning, your experiences are unlike anyone else in the entire universe. Until you respect your individuality, your moves, your approach, your art is subject to the pat forms you learned in Shu and the contrasting, but still pat approaches, you learned in Ha, that are just that - pat. Ri is trying to play, do, say, act what is right for the moment dashing all convention, if necessary, and bringing you, not the pat forms, to the party.

You can jones for mastery, but are you willing to sacrifice what you know to go through the Shu-Ha-Ri cycle? Cycle? Yes, once you've visited Ri, don't assume that you've now achieved mastery. Time to get back to Shu, then to Ha, then to Ri, then to Shu...

And should you get stuck somewhere along the way, consider getting help. Look for a some (k)no(w)-nothing who's been cycling for a few spins...

Posted by wayofgo at 03:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack